the critical program factors for increasing the human capital of a company are:

To measure the areas that are decisive for the employees’ emotional attachment and motivation

To ask questions which can be converted succinctly into action

The possibility of efficient and speedy implementation

To measure the individual culture in each company department

To offer assistance in implementing the measurement outcomes in a concrete manner

To push senior and employees’ personal responsibility

To measure the areas that are decisive for the employees’ emotional attachment and motivation

To measure the areas that are decisive for the employees’ emotional attachment and motivation

The first step of the employee bonding program is to ask (or add to your current satisfaction survey) 20 standard questions that measure employee engagement and link powerfully to relevant business outcomes such as:

Productivity

Retention

Customer engagement

Profitability

These 20 questions which cover 10 different dimensions, outlined below, measure dimensions that leaders, managers and employees of each organization can influence directly.

Work conditions

Use of personal talent

Relationships with work colleagues

Work environment

Internal communication

Identification with the company

Relationship to the direct supervisor

Personal development opportunities

Link between personal and company values

Compensation

m1nd-set’s research has proven on several occasions that these 10 dimensions cover nearly 90% of the variance in employee emotional attachment and motivation and that there is no differentiation between gender, age, region or industry. However, there are significant differences between working groups (teams) with regards to employee attachment.

m1nd-set´s employee bonding program reveals that typically a significant percentage of employees are not engaged in, or are actively disengaged from their work. As a result, companies are struggling to develop motivated workforces.

m1nd-set maintains a comprehensive database linking employee engagement to relevant business outcomes like retention, productivity, and profitability, as well as customer engagement. We also gather information on key work force demographics, including length of service, function, level, status, gender, age, …

What can organizations do to build workplaces that foster higher levels of employee engagement?

improving customers' satisfaction

Improving customers’ satisfaction means understanding which attributes drive satisfaction. Improving customers’ satisfaction in a cost effective way also requires setting priorities and finding the best “leverages”.

Researchers know well how to find the importance of attributes by using traditional statistical techniques such as correlations, multiple regressions models, etc. Unfortunately, these methods give limited actionable outputs because they all assume satisfaction is linear.

This is rarely the case. Some attributes have a big impact as long as they haven’t reached a minimum level and almost no impact afterwards. In fact, it is critical to distinguish the impact of an attribute on overall satisfaction from its impact on overall dissatisfaction.

As an example, if one uses a regression analysis to evaluate the impact of the many satisfaction attributes which new car owners rate during the first months they use their car, the attribute “my car starts” will be placed at the bottom of the list. For the majority of customers whose car starts normally, enhancing this attribute won’t increase overall satisfaction. Does it mean that this attribute is not “important” for them? Yes, as long as the car starts OK. However, for those owners whose car doesn’t start, making it start will become an absolute priority.

This car example is somewhat simplistic but demonstrates that the impact of an attribute on overall customer satisfaction can be asymmetric. As long as the car doesn’t start, users are totally dissatisfied with it and nothing else can compensate. As soon as it starts, other items become much more important to them than simply making the car start even better.

The 4 types of contribution to satisfaction

Previous research has demonstrated that attributes can impact satisfaction in four different ways. These are usually classified as follows:

Basic attributes: they have a strong impact on overall dissatisfaction in case of a problem, but only a weak impact on raising overall satisfaction

Performance attributes: they have a strong impact on overall dissatisfaction in case of a problem, and also a strong impact on raising overall satisfaction.

Bonus attributes: they have a weak impact on overall dissatisfaction in case of a problem, but a strong impact on raising overall satisfaction

Secondary attributes: they have a weak impact on overall dissatisfaction in case of a problem, and also a weak impact on raising overall satisfaction setting priorities.

Basic attributes must be at an “acceptable” level before Performance attributes start to matter. And it’s only when both the basic and performance attributes are optimized that bonus attributes show their full potential.

David Perroud exposed the results obtained with this method on a large airline passenger satisfaction study at the ESOMAR Leisure Conference in 2006 when m1nd-set first started using this research technique. Both the conference program committee and the participants elected this contribution best paper of the conference for “an innovative approach that gives a concrete contribution to the decision making process”.

For more information on the subject download the paper presented at ESOMAR (including a case study on airline satisfaction).

productsservices

B1S is the Travel Retail industry’s most comprehensive and accurate database regarding consumer behaviour and air traffic

m1nd-set conducts face to face airports at over 60 airports around the world

AIRS@T is m1nd-set and IATA´S leading benchmark of air passenger satisfaction worldwide

On top of our ongoing program and “packaged” products m1nd-set offers a full range of ad-hoc services

m1nd-set 360° is a new Virtual Reality research product to help industry stakeholders boost footfall and conversion in duty free shops.

In addition, we also provide our expertise on:

global travel retail shopper segmentation

In collaboration with TFWA, APTRA and with the support of several industry sponsors, m1nd-set has been commissioned to segment airport shoppers globally and across categories.

The segmentation research comprises two major phases:

A global online survey of 4,300 recently traveled airline passengers measuring their consumer patterns (purchasing habits, on what occasion and which kind of trips,...)

An intercept survey at airports that helps understand passenger behavior at a specific airport and how each airport differs from the others in terms of segment mix.

Having an industry-wide definition of shopper segments.

The aim of this unique research, which m1nd-set pioneered in 2012, is to have one common definition of airport shopper segments across the industry. We employ state-of-the-art methodologies such as MaxDiff (trade-off) questions to fully understand the benefits that each shopper segment requires and make it possible to group shoppers in accordance to their needs, traveling patterns and socio-demographic characteristics.

employee bonding program

M1nd-set´s employee bonding program is dissimilar to most conventional research and consulting services. We help companies drive true organic growth - revenue and profitability from continuing operations by focusing on the heart of success – the employees.

m1nd-set´s research has shown a strong correlation between two key success factors of an organization: employee and customer engagement. Our employee bonding program provides organizations with the means to reduce the variance in performance across organizational units.

happy and profitable employees

Many studies have shown that engaged employees are more productive employees. m1nd-set research also proved and measured that engaged employees are more profitable, more customer-focused, more dependable and less likely to seek other professional opportunities.

monthly travel retail insights

Every month m1nd-set brings customers and subscribers a wealth of knowledge in brief but relevant bulletins called “m1nd-ful”. This complimentary service enables our customers and other industry members who subscribe to discover unique and revealing insights about customer behaviour in duty free and travel retail from a wide variety of angles.

Whether market or category specific or based on themes such as technology use, low cost airline passengers or the importance of sense of place in travel retail, the bulletins are a highly useful and acclaimed tool for the vast number of companies who have subscribed to this service.

asymmetry of consumer satisfaction

One of the most efficient means of understanding what drives consumer satisfaction!

Based on the research done by Prof. Daniel Ray of the University of Grenoble, the asymmetry of satisfaction is a powerful tool to categorize and set hierarchies on satisfaction attributes. At m1nd-set, we are at the forefront of this innovative research technique and can offer to implement it either on existing or new satisfaction programs.

Researchers know well how to find the importance of attributes by using traditional statistical techniques such as correlations, multiple regressions models, … Unfortunately these methods give limited actionable outputs because they all assume satisfaction is linear.

This is rarely the case. Some attributes have a big impact as long as they haven’t reached a minimum level and almost no impact afterwards. In fact, it is critical to distinguish the impact of an attribute on overall satisfaction from its impact on overall dissatisfaction.

using the asymmetry method will help you:

Understand the real drivers of satisfaction;

Set clear priorities in order to increase satisfaction;

Improve the ROI of actions taken on satisfaction measurements;

Set clear and achievable satisfaction targets.

travelers database

M1nd-set interviews more than 150,000 passengers per year in nearly 100 major airports around the globe.

About half of these travelers say they would like to participate in other research projects and enter m1nd-set's travelers panel, which is now one of the most comprehensive of the industry with the following key figures:

400,000 travelers, rising every month

100% recruited face-to-face at airport gates

1/3 premium travelers (First & Business class)

From the main regions of the world (Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North America)

A high proportion of frequent and high revenue travelers

Our ongoing recruitment panel is refreshed every month and reveals high-quality outcomes and higher than average response rates.

forecasting models

m1nd-set experts master state-of-the-art methods such as agent-based modeling that allow for modeling and forecasting complex and non-linear business outcomes.

In partnership with Virtual m1nds, our sister company, m1nd-set has developed AirVM, a model that replicates the decision making process (which airline am I going to fly with, on which itinerary, in which class of service and for what price?) of millions of passengers from a virtual perspective. This permits decision makers to perform “what if” scenarios offering an accuracy rarely matched in market research.

efficient computer models

Some of the research techniques that we propose, like the asymmetry of satisfaction, the links between employee and customer satisfaction, MaxDiff segmentations or Choice based surveys can be turned into a computer model (simulation), which allows marketers to play with different scenarios and estimate the impact of future strategic actions of key metrics, such as sales volume, overall customer satisfaction, ...